Your Cultural Concierge! VoCA offers critical commentary on the Canadian art scene, with a focus on Toronto. Featuring exhibition previews, critics picks, interviews and in-depth articles on art in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa and Halifax.
October 2nd, 2008 — Art fairs, Art market, Articles by Andrea Carson, Collecting, Events/Talks, Toronto
Le Kick, Yves Tessier, casein on wood, 3.5 x 5.5 inches, 2001-07. $800 at Projex-Mtl at TIAF.
Have a quick read of my piece in today’s Globe and Mail on all the things to see, do and purchase at this year’s
Art Toronto, which runs October 2 - 6, 2008:
Click HERE for my article.
October 2nd, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, News: Canada, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
Vancouver Artist Tim Lee Wins the $50,000 2008 Sobey Art Award
Tim Lee, The Goldberg Variations, Aria, BWV 988, 1741, Johann Sebastian Bach (Glenn Gould 1981), 2007.
Image: bos2008.com
Toronto, October 1, 2008 – Canada’s contemporary art community gathered at the Royal Ontario Museum to celebrate the passion and talent of Canada’s young contemporary artists and to honour Tim Lee, winner of the 2008 Sobey Art Award.
VoCA says: Hmmm…Tim Lee’s work is beginning to remind us of Rodney Graham’s work…
October 1st, 2008 — Artists, Events/Talks, Exhibitions, Nuit Blanche Toronto 2008, Painting, Toronto
LIVE / Jonathan Meese
Saturday, 4 October / 6 PM / $4 Members, $6 Non-Members
The Power Plant
The German artist Jonathan Meese. Image: cfa-berlin.com
Controversial German artist Jonathan Meese, whose wild, unhinged installations and performances are sometimes described as “social exorcisms” comes to Toronto for his first Canadian exhibition and performance this weekend.
DO NOT MISS THIS!!
September 30th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Montreal, Ottawa, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto
VoCA contributor Catherine Toews visited Allyson Mitchell’s exhibition in Kingston, Ontario recently. Here are her thoughts:
An installation shot of the exhibition’s dolls. Image: uniongallery.queensu.ca
Allyson Mitchell’s mixed-media work integrates a dizzying array of soft, girly, gaudy components – Cabbage Patch doll heads, hooked animal rugs, cross-stitched kittens, ceramic dolls, and fuzzy pink afghan blankets. It is a testament to Mitchell’s crystal clear vision and considerable technical skill that she has managed to combine such disparate, kitschy components into two strong, subtle installations for her exhibition at the Union Gallery on the Queen’s University campus.
September 29th, 2008 — Nuit Blanche Toronto 2008, Toronto
Nuit Blanche Toronto takes place this Saturday, October 4th from dusk ’til dawn. Since last year’s audience doubled to 800,000 VoCA has selected what we think will be the evening’s highlights.
Click HERE for our critics picks of Zone A and HERE for Zone B.
Zone C is down in Toronto’s Liberty Village this year, and is made up of two exhibitions by two curators, Haema Sivanesan, executive director of SAVAC, the South Asian Visual Arts Centre in Toronto and Dave Dyment, artist and former co-director of Mercer Union Contemporary Art Centre, Toronto
Our picks for Dave Dyment’s exhibition, titled Beginning to See the Light, are:
1. Overflow, 2008 by Michel de Broin
Michel de Broin, Solitude, 2001. Image: micheldebroin.org
We’re pretty sure the 2007 Sobey Award winner won’t disappoint. This is the man who imagined suspendina a mobile home from a crane and risked arrest for driving a pedal-powered Buick Regal downtown.
This piece will present a waterfall flowing from a third story window.
September 26th, 2008 — Artists, Collecting, Exhibitions, Montreal, News: Canada, Painting, Vancouver
Vancouver painter Jeremy Hof has won the 10th annual RBC Painting competition for his work entitled layer painting red.
Jeremy Hof, layer painting red, 2008. Image: courtesy RBC.
Amanda Reeves of Oakville and (VoCA favorite) Wil Murray of Montreal were revealed as honourable mentions for their work Untitled 08 2008 and Sexe Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac Maniac.
September 26th, 2008 — Articles, Calgary, Edmonton, Government Arts Cuts, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
Please, please read the full article that Ms. Atwood - the queen of Canada’s literary scene - wrote in yesterday’s Globe and Mail about the Conservative government’s cuts to the arts. Here’s an excerpt:
“Tuesday, (Prime Minister Stephen Harper) told us that some group called “ordinary people” didn’t care about something called “the arts.” His idea of “the arts” is a bunch of rich people gathering at galas whining about their grants.
Well, I can count the number of moderately rich writers who live in Canada on the fingers of one hand: I’m one of them, and I’m no Warren Buffett. I don’t whine about my grants because I don’t get any grants. I whine about other grants - grants for young people, that may help them to turn into me, and thus pay to the federal and provincial governments the kinds of taxes I pay, and cover off the salaries of such as Mr. Harper.”
Canadian national treasure, novelist Margaret Atwood. Image: imaginastore.com
September 18th, 2008 — Artists, Exhibitions, Painting, Photography, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto, Winnipeg
Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto
Dyed Roots: The New Emergence of Culture
September 9 - October 26, 2008
This beautiful exhibition, curated by Camilla Singh in the difficult space of MoCCA, presents “the intermingling of cultures…considered as a natural consequence of immigration and travel.”
Rina Banerjee, Crib sculpture. Image: rinabanerjee.net
The show’s title refers to intrinsic qualities that persist in spite of external influence and efforts made to conceal them. Dyed Roots: the new emergence of culture explores the ways in which a sense of identity can be cultivated and influenced.
September 17th, 2008 — Calgary, News: Canada, Sculpture/Installation
We know that it has its sights set on becoming more culturally-aware. Now, the city of Calgary, Alberta has just announced “a stunning Western bronze destined to become one of the largest sculptures in North America and one of the city’s most photographed icons.”
A model for the bronze. Image: cbc.ca
September 12th, 2008 — Artists, Books, Exhibitions, First Nations/Inuit, Montreal, Photography, Prints, Sculpture/Installation, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg
It’s been almost a year, and we’re wondering where these out-of-the-box thinkers are now. Click HERE to see what they were up to last year.
Wedge Curatorial Projects, Toronto
BECOMING: Photographs from the Wedge Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit
September 12 – 28 December, 2008
Wayne Salmon, Mr. MacKenzie. Image: mocadetroit.org
Wedge’s Kenneth Montague has been busy. Aside from having curated a neat show-within-a-show at Toronto’s Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art that opened yesterday (More on that excellent exhibition coming soon), he’s got a show of photographs showing in Detroit. Featuring approximately 67 works by 38 artists, the show focuses on the portrait, and the reclaiming of identity through the photographic image.
Click HERE for more information.
Andrea Carson writes on contemporary art, architecture and design...Read full bio